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I had a bit of downtime this week and decided to set up my modded Minecraft server that my friends and I play on during the winter months. It’s a nice way to socialize at everyone’s leisure and enjoy some collaborative gameplay. I also enjoyed some more Crawl Game with my group.

Data Collection

Game name: Minecraft (Modded) / Crawl

Time played: 10hrs / 3hrs

Game genre: Sandbox / Dungeon Crawler

Days played: Tuesday, Friday, Saturday

Platform played on: PC

Communities / Participants: 3 friends and I / Project Team

Self Reflection

This week was a lot of fun, I played some more Crawl with my team for the Term Knowledge Quest group project and played lots of Minecraft. Minecraft is a relaxing game on its own but the possibilities that mods create for the player make it hard not to play for hours. Unlike with most games, I spend a few hours researching mods and mod packs when I set up a Minecraft server. Sometimes we play with simple mods that make the game more challenging and other times we play with mods that completely alter the game.

One of my favorite parts of Minecraft is how social the game is. It doesn’t take a lot of skill to play but it brings people together to collaborate and work together while still allowing solo play. When it comes to the base building I tend to focus on the solo aspect of the game but when it comes to combat and bosses I like to work with a group. I enjoy working with people but I prefer designing my own base. This week while my friends worked on building weapons and armor, I worked on building a rail system between our bases and The Nether.

Around the last hour of playing, we decided to go to The End to fight the Ender Dragon. This was a fun fight and it felt really satisfying to beat the Ender Dragon. It’s not a difficult boss but I am normally offline when someone beats it.

Example of Modded Minecraft – Direwolf20 Let’s Play Series

Author’s Note:

I’ve enjoyed writing this blog and this has definitely made me feel the urge to get back into gaming. It’s a really nice way to relax and destress from school work.

I didn’t have a lot of time this week but during our group project meeting, Karth, Renquist and I played Crawl on Steam. Crawl is dungeon crawler style game with some interesting game mechanics.

Data Collection

Game name: Crawl

Time played: 3hrs

Game genre: Dungeon Crawler

Days played: Tuesday

Platform played on: PC

Communities / Participants: Karth, Renquist, I

Self Reflection

We played Crawl again this week, all three of us huddled around Renquist’s TV. We decided to play with a bot turned on to see if it was any different. Well, it turns out the AI is really good at this game and we are really bad in comparison, except Karth. Karth is very good at Crawl, spending most of his time as the living player while the rest of us are ghosts controlling monsters in each room. The game is essentially a dungeon crawler where the living player is the character trying to get to level 10 and beat the boss while the rest of the characters are ghosts that can spawn monsters to attack the player. It’s a really enjoyable game for small LAN parties which I find to be a much better experience than playing over the internet.

Overall, it was a good night filled with wings and gaming. Karth outplayed both Renquist and I but it was clear that everyone was having a good time. I could definitely see this becoming a weekly gathering.

More Kingdom Hearts Final Mix this week! I forgot how much I enjoyed this game.

Data Collection

Game name: Kingdom Hearts Final Mix (HD Remaster)

Time played: 4hrs

Game genre: Action RPG

Days played: Friday

Platform played on: Playstation 4

Communities / Participants: Me (1)

Self Reflection

Not a lot happened this week, I spent my time grinding in the Olympus Coliseum Arena, I really wanted to beat the tournament but I kept dying by Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy 7. I took away two-thirds of his health and then he would just get one good hit and I’d be done. I decided to keep trying so I could level up and beat him with ease before progressing through the story. It was a bit tedious but overall I think it will be worth the time. I want to collect all of the PlayStation network trophies for this game and I’m going to need to reach max level with all of my characters for that. While the lower level tournaments are tedious, the mid to upper-level tournament is a bit more exciting with better bosses. I felt like I played well but could have done better. As I played I realized that I really enjoy the combat for this game although the camera that follows the player is awful, and it was kind of fun to analyze the best ways to beat each enemy.

This week I picked up a copy of NHL 18, I have not played a hockey game since they were pixelated so I am looking forward to playing this one.

Data Collection

Game name: NHL 18 (EA Sports)

Time played: 6hrs

Game genre: Sports

Days played: Friday, Saturday

Platform played on: PlayStation 4

Communities / Participants: Me (1)

Self Reflection

I went into NHL 18 not expecting much more than updated graphics and smoother gameplay, I was quite surprised by the number of improvements made since the last NHL game I had played. I started out playing as the Toronto Maple Leafs and I did not do terribly well. I was not used to a game that relied so much on me controlling every character on the ice. I had to predict where players were going and pass or shoot at precise times in order to score. The first game did not go quite as planned and I lost 5-3.

I decided to spend some time in the training section of the game that lets the player practice each aspect of the game, shooting, passing, checking, and advanced skills like deeking. I got the hang of most of them and won my next 2 games but I am still not very good at the advanced skills which require more precise controller use.

After spending a while playing as Toronto I decided to switch to the “Be a Pro” game mode. In this mode, the player creates their own hockey player and chooses what level to start their player at. I chose pre NHL draft, and played on a team until the draft and then was eventually drafted by the New Jersey Devils. When I created my character I chose to play center because I was good at faceoffs but by the time the draft came, I had become good at scoring.

Overall, this was a really satisfying way to spend my game time for the week and I will probably play much more of NHL 18.

I wasn’t really sure what to play this week as I was quite busy but I ended up going back to one of my favorite game series, Kingdom Hearts.

Data Collection

Game name: Kingdom Hearts Final Mix (HD Remaster)

Time played: 5.5hrs

Game genre: Action RPG

Days played: Saturday

Platform played on: PlayStation 4

Communities / Participants: Me (1)

Self Reflection

This week I decided to go back and play one of my favorite games from the PlayStation 2, Kingdom Hearts Final Mix. I picked up the HD Remake of it for the PlayStation 4. From the moment I started up the g, me I had a feeling of nostalgia for the days when I came home after school and played this. Having played this game before I felt like I should spend a while leveling up the main character Sora, on the starting island. It turned out that this was a good decision because the first boss in the game was quite a bit harder than I remembered. Eventually, I met up with our two side character, Donald and Goofy from the Disney Universe.

From here the game got a bit easier although, It felt like the remaster might have had some improvements made to the AI for Donald and Goofy. Suddenly, Donald and Goofy were actually being useful Non-Player Characters doing their jobs of attacking and supporting the party. I felt like I played well and was able to level each character at a decent rate while progressing at a reasonable pace.

This week, Mario Kart with a friend on a Super Nintendo Classic and on my Nintendo 3ds. It’s a fun racing game based in the Mario Universe. I’ll try to discuss my experience playing the original vs the new Mario Kart 7 on the 3ds.

This week, I played Ghost Recon: Wildlands with my friend from work. The tactical shooter is probably one of my favorite games of 2017. It has unique gameplay featuring an open world environment with both primary and secondary objectives in each mission as well as side missions.

Data Collection

Game name: Ghost Recon: Wildlands

Time played: 6hrs

Game genre: Tactical Shooter

Days played: Saturday, Sunday

Platform played on: PlayStation 4

Communities / Participants: Friend and I (2)

Self Reflection

I enjoyed playing Ghost Recon over the weekend, I like the third person playstyle while still being able to go into a first person view while shooting. When playing alone you are joined by a squad of AI soldiers which you can strategically control to take down targets. While this is nice, I feel the AI is underwhelming in its ability to be subtle, which is bad because stealth is a big part of the game. It is fun to drive around the open world map with your squad taking out various bad guys and helping the rebel forces though.

I was joined by my friend this weekend, we played online over PlayStation Network and it was nice but it was different than what we usually do. We usually go to each other’s houses and setup and extra screen and PS4 to play. When sitting in the same room, I find my response time to the things going on in the game is quicker. Playing remotely proved to be more challenging, we had to revive each other a lot more than usual. That is one of the nice things about Ghost Recon though if you die or get too injured then members of your squad can come revive you.

We mainly played the side missions, collecting new weapons and weapon customizations while helping the rebel forces, so we could level up. Leveling up allowed me to get some better abilities like more armor and better health regen after being revived. Other perks include things like Drone perks, Weapon perks, and then squad bonuses.

Overall, I think I played alright but could have done a lot better had we been playing in the same room where there is no delay in communication causing a breakdown in teamwork.

I spent my free time this week playing Gundam Breaker 3. Gundam Breaker 3 is an action game where you pilot and customize a Gundam to compete in battle royale style tournaments. It’s basically a hack n’ slash game with a ton of customization options for the Gundam you control.

Data Collection

Game name: Gundam Breaker 3 – Mar 3rd, 2016 – Developed by Namco

Time played: 3.5hrs

Game genre: Action

Days played: Friday

Platform played on: PlayStation 4

Communities / Participants: Me

Self Reflection

This was not my first time playing Gundam Breaker 3 and it definitely won’t be the last. I ended up starting over from the first story mission. I recorded some of the gameplay which can be seen below. I didn’t take the time to refamiliarize myself with the controls so I didn’t do quite as well as planned on the first couple of missions. At some points, it felt more like button mashing until I grasped the controls and then it was smooth sailing. I completed several missions and acquired many new parts for my Gundam.

After getting familiar with the controls and collecting a bunch of Gundam parts, I decided to customize my Gundam. I tend to prefer close range melee weapons and being fast over having heavy firepower and being slower. The momentum the extra speed gives makes it easier to deal a critical blow with my play style. Having played the game before I know I will need to swap out parts and go for something a bit more powerful in future missions.

While at some points I find Gundam Breaker 3 to be a bit repetitive, I would recommend it to anyone who is a fan of mech based games or the Gundam franchise. I’ve been building Gundam models, also known as Gunpla, for the past few years. Most, if not all, of the gunpla currently available are based on Gundams featured in the many Gundam Anime series. I plan to pick up the new game Gundam Versus in the next few weeks, so maybe that will make an appearance in a future blog.

I went into this weekend expecting to play some more Destiny 2 with my friends and maybe put in some time on my backlog of RPG’s. Instead, around on the way to school Thursday, I found myself in an accident. The details of the said accident shall remain vague and undetailed to keep the anonymity required in this course but I will say the results of the accident have left me temporarily unable to fully use both hands.

Data Collection

Game name: Katamari Damacy – Sept 21st, 2004 – Developed by Namco

Time played: 2.5hrs

Game genre: Puzzle, Action

Days played: Sunday

Platform played on: PC (PCSX2) , PlayStation 2

Communities / Participants: Just Me, Myself, and I

Self-Reflection

I found Katamari Damacy last weekend when I was looking for my Nintendo 64, It was in a box with a ton of PlayStation 2 I had forgotten about like Ace Combat and Dark Cloud. It’s a nice game that only really requires your thumbs to play. Perfect for me given my current situation. It was quite enjoyable to sit back and relax while rolling a giant ball of stuff around getting bigger and bigger. You start out as a guy pushing around a small ball that things smaller than it sticks to, as you collect things the size of the things you can collect get bigger. Eventually, you can pick up people, cars, large buildings. It is by no means a complex game but it does have challenges and stats in each level.

When I started playing I just thought it was going to be a game to log some time with but it actually helped me relax which helped with the amount of pain I was in. There’s not a lot to say in terms of gameplay. The game does have really catchy and relaxing music though. Next time I play I will probably try to complete the game and beat some old high score. (: